By Aminu Garko
Kano – Sen. Sani Musa (APC, Niger East) has rejected the establishment of state police in the country, saying the outfit will be subjected to “political abuse.”
Musa stated this during deliberations at the just-concluded retreat of the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which was held in Kano.
“I am no longer in support of what we want to do in creating state police. I just took a sample of the community state policing that we said we have introduced. It’s not working. Look at the infrastructure, look at the demography of the people that work, it’s not balanced. It will only create a problem for this country.
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“There will be political abuse, there will be corruption, ethnic, religious, or zonal bias, and disparities. Furthermore, in coordination, there will be challenges between the states and the federal,” he said.
Sen. Musa, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, however, supports autonomy for local governments in the country, describing it as very important, “because today the third tier of government is not in existence.”
“It was just recently that I heard a governor who is against the judgment, saying there is nothing like the third tier of government. But I can remember when SEC was conducting elections for local governments.
“Why can’t we, if we are not creating a commission that will be conducting elections for the third tier of government, then let’s make a directorate out of INEC to conduct elections for us in this country,” he said.
The lawmaker also stated his position on the creation of a system of federalism in the country, saying, “I am an ardent supporter of what is called federalism, but federalism for me is just a tag.
“When we come to talk about leadership, we have had successive governments in this country from the colonial time, right to the Sardauna era, to even the presidential system when we produced Shagari and the rest.
“One thing that we have missed and that has been brought into our polity is the demarcation of the ideals that brought about the thoughts of true nationalism and patriotism.
“I do not think that whatever we do to our constitution, we will get it right. I will give you a simple example. The country has been demarcated into zones based on connecting sub-national states, and we formed them from their regional locations and called them zones.
“Today, if I stand and talk here, I am talking as a senator. I am representing Niger East, and from Central Nigeria. We have been demarcated, and my thoughts and ideals are going that way. Look at the panelists, we have only four of the zones being represented: Northwest, Southeast, Southwest, and Northeast.
“If we are going to talk about the amendment of our constitution, and talk about state police, local government autonomy, true federalism, devolution of powers, there are some basic fundamentals that we are supposed to take as ideals, and we must work with them,” he added.
